Blackstone's Magistrates' Court Handbook 2009

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Editor: Andrew Keogh

Price: £39.95

Edition: 2009 Edition (February 2009)

ISBN: 978-0-19-954484-4

Buy from OUP: Click Here

Criminal practitioners are now busier than ever.  With the constant cutting of Legal Aid, practitioners need to be even more on top of their game.  To do so in such a wide area of law like criminal law is some ask, particularly when a practitioner often receives a phone call following which they must attend, discover the nature of the alleged crime and provide coherent and comprehensive advice to their client.  Blackstone's Magistrates' Court Handbook 2009 should, therefore, be in every self-respecting criminal lawyer's briefcase.

Written by an experienced criminal law solicitor, Blackstone's Magistrates' Court Handbook 2009 is separated into three distinct parts: procedure; offences; and sentencing.  Each part then contains a number of sub-parts explaining specific issues.  For example, one of the sub-parts of procedure is bail where an initial introduction is provided explaining the basic presumption of bail in many circumstances and is followed by the relevant provisions of the Bail Act 1976.  Keogh then explains when an application for bail should be made, the grounds for refusing bail, the prosecutor's right to appeal and the effect of breaching bail conditions.  This approach is excellent: being both logical and succinct.

Blackstone's Magistrates' Court Handbook 2009 is impressively written and well-balanced.  It is practically written and includes excellent short and snappy summaries of the law and procedure.  It also has a number of superb features throughout the text (although inconsistently).  For example, the offences part makes excellent use of shaded backgrounds for statutory materials, icons explaining the severity of the offence and tables setting out the offences.  Unfortunately, the statutory materials in the procedure part are only in a slightly smaller font and no shading is used.  Its size is also ideal: being no thicker than a BlackBerry and only slightly bigger so it can be easily carried around in either a jacket pocket or handbag: this is important for busy practitioners!

For practitioners spending any time in the magistrates' court, Blackstone's Magistrates' Court Handbook 2009 is an indispensible guide and aide memoire.  Between its covers is a clear and coherent summary of the law commonly considered by the magistrates' court.  Its price, at less than £40, also means it is superb value for money and indispensible reading for criminal law practitioners.  Whilst its layout could be more consistent in future editions, this should not detract from an otherwise excellent text.

Reviewed on 12 July 2009

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